


F.A.B.U.L.O.U.S. - S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Next Top Model

by Jaune_Chat



Series: F.A.B.U.L.O.U.S. [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Contests, Fanboys - Freeform, Fangirls, Fashion & Couture, Friendship, Gen, Gleeful Amounts of Ignorance, Guest Stars, Humor, Hydra (Marvel), Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Post-HYDRA Reveal, Runway Show
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-04
Updated: 2016-06-04
Packaged: 2018-07-12 05:26:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7087138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jaune_Chat/pseuds/Jaune_Chat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha realizes that F.A.B.U.L.O.U.S.' annual trade show could be invaluable for finding out secrets about HYDRA.  Except F.A.B.U.L.O.U.S. can't really spy, and she's no designer.  What could possibly go wrong?</p>
            </blockquote>





	F.A.B.U.L.O.U.S. - S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Next Top Model

“I think that about does it!” Grace said, finishing her fussing with Agent Romanov’s gown. It didn’t need fussing, she and Jay had in fact designed it to be fuss-free (as well as cut-resistant, bulletproof, waterproof, and flameproof) but her clothes were her babies and she was required by law to fuss. 

Agent Romanov twisted to check how it moved, and smiled to see everything stay securely and comfortably in place. This was a gown made for the biggest of bigwig parties, enough to let her visit the White House and protect the president in case of a large-scale bad guy attack simultaneously. She would be able to fit, not just a small arsenal, but in fact a very large one under her skirts.

“Perfect. Thank you,” she said. Jay beamed as he put the last of his pins away. Captain Rogers had apparently scolded all of the Avengers, or maybe just looked at all of them very disapprovingly upon learning their rather curt interactions with S.H.I.E.L.D.’s uniform division, because suddenly the members of F.A.B.U.L.O.U.S. had found a lot more thanks coming their way a lot more often. That totally made up for a lot, like not being out of the basement very much.

Also, they’d each gotten their own Keurigs, so Grace was basically going to nominate Captain Rogers for sainthood. 

“And for the finishing touch…” Jay said dramatically, and whisked out a shawl made from similar material to the gown to settle over Agent Romanov’s shoulders. “There’s little bands on the ends and both sides, plus a button, so you can turn it into a jacket and cover your arms and head.” A necessary must, and not just for evening chill, but for full coverage protection in case of mayhem. A bulletproof gown wasn’t very good if it left most of the chest and back exposed.

Agent Romanov slid the sleek material through her fingers and experimentally tried jacketing herself several times. She’d probably have it down to less than a second before long.

“Very clever,” she said, and lifted her arms to de-gown. Even with the rigging in the gown to allow for freedom of movement, it was still somewhat heavy, and not something you wanted to lug around unless necessary. Grace helped her out of it, and Jay got it back on the mannequin as Agent Romanov put her workout pants back on over her leotard. Vera was over in the corner working on exploding jewelry, and Harold was deconstructing their latest load of gifts from upstairs. The wide array of mildly battle-scarred clothing on the table seemed to catch Agent Romanov’s eye, and she walked over to look down at them in surprise.

“Those are from…?” she asked.

“Oh, latest missions from something-or-other. Every time they capture some baddie S.H.I.E.L.D. confiscates their gear and we get a chance to look over their clothes to see if there’s any new ideas we can use!” Harold said cheerfully, flipping over a pocket and squinting at the stitching. “Hey, tracker in the seam again! Ooo, and a lollipop!”

“What flavor?” Jay called.

“Grape!”

“Ew.”

Harold shrugged and tossed the sucker into a bin for Sci-Ops to analyze. He realized Agent Romanov had flinched and frozen.

“Oh, oh no, no, they scan everything before we get it! No active devices and no explosive residue!” Grace said hastily in reassurance.

“Or poison?” Agent Romanov said tightly.

Harold got a horrified look on his face, and Agent Romanov reached for her phone. Then he giggled a bit, and pointed to a pocket. “That’s Sergei’s work, and he doesn’t stand for that type of stuff. You can muck his work with blood, dirt, seawater, explosives, knives, anything, and he’ll fix it, but put poison in your pocket and he won’t give you so much as a handkerchief.”

Agent Romanov froze again, staring at Harold as if he were suddenly extremely interesting. He was the one that flinched then, as the last time she’d had that expression, she’d been a bit sore at him for a misunderstanding with a prototype costume…

“How do you know Sergei?”

“Tactical, Undercover, and Spycraft Fashion Week. Or as well call it, ‘our one time of the year they let us out of the basement!’” Vera said cheerfully. 

Agent Romanov drifted closer to the table and pointed at a pair of combat trousers with electric blue accents, raising an eyebrow at Vera.

“Hakim. His stuff is super tech-savvy – you can hook up an entire concealable surveillance van’s worth of stuff in your pants and still be able to run.”

She gestured at another tactical vest, this one slimmer and able to fit under clothing, and nodded for Jay to answer.

“Lupe. Likes to go for invisible gun holsters, break away stitching, convertible clothing; her stuff can switch from civilian to soldier in three rips.”

Agent Romanov turned to Grace and pointed at a pair of combat boots at one end of the table.

“Ursela. High-efficiency and hard ware – I bet you you could drop an agent into the jungle naked but for those shoes and they’d be able to Bear Grylls their way to civilization in style with what’s crammed in there and the boots would still look completely intact under the mud. I’m totally envious, and I’ve been trying to figure out how she does it for years.”

The agent’s mouth worked a few times. “Do you happen to know who all these designers work for?”

“Oh, uh… no. Not allowed to talk employers at the show. Techniques yes, employers are a no-go. But still a great place to talk shop!”

“Has anyone ever… accidentally mentioned something about HYDRA?”

“Who?” Harold asked. Agent Romanov looked a little pained.

“HYDRA. Evil intelligence organization, wants to take over the world, infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D. and nearly killed us all a couple years ago?”

All the members of F.A.B.U.L.O.U.S. looked at each other in bewilderment and shook their heads. Agent Romanov muttered, “My God, they never _do_ let you out of the basement…”

“I mean, we sort of know who is there _in general_ but no one _says_ anything specific, you know, _out loud_. Against the unspoken rules, completely not kosher,” Vera said, and started ticking things off her fingers. “I’m pretty sure there’s some CIA, NSA, and FBI guys, IMF, MI6, Mossad, FSB, SVR, U.N.C.L.E., and whole lot of other governments, but their stuff is pretty passé. Except for MI6, or… you know, the guy who I’m pretty sure is MI6. The accent’s a dead giveaway, and if he were any more British-looking I think he’d bleed tea.”

Grace mouthed behind Vera’s head at Agent Romanov, _Crush on him for years!_

“There’s also a bunch of black-hat organizations, Specter, A.I.M., the Syndicate, C.O.B.R.A., K.A.O.S., the Evil League of Evil, and the Fiendish Organization for World Larceny. Haven’t heard of HYDRA though, but there’s plenty of people who don’t fly their flags very high.”

Agent Romanov looked a little nonplussed. “Evil League of-. Isn’t F.O.W.L. from the Darkwing Duck cartoon?”

“Have you ever met a team of parrot fashion designers? I have,” Jay said authoritatively. 

Her eyelid twitched. “Don’t go anywhere. I’ll be back in a few hours. Gown is gorgeous, good job.” She swept out of the workshop as if there were enemies running after her.

“What has her spooked?” Harold said, draping the shawl back on its form.

“No idea. Don’t all spies talk shop? They gotta have conferences, everyone has conferences!” Grace said. She shrugged, everyone else shrugged back, and everyone went back to work.

\---

Agent Romanov was back an hour later, Captain Rogers at her side.

“They see everyone. They’re going to be in the room with _everyone_ ,” she was saying as they walked in.

“Hello, Grace, Jay, Vera, Harold,” Captain Rogers said, nodding to everyone in turn. There might have been some collective swooning going on before Vera answered him.

“Yes, Captain, what can we do for you?”

“I understand that all of F.A.B.U.L.O.U.S. more or less knows everyone else in the spy fashion circles?”

“Pretty much! Anyone we don’t know isn’t worth knowing,” Jay said.

“And when is the next fashion week?”

“Two weeks from now,” Harold said. “It’s gonna be epic. We are _so_ ready this year! Our runway show is gonna be killer!”

Natasha raised an eyebrow.

“Not literally. That’s totally against the rules,” he added hastily.

“Everyone, would you be willing to temporarily add Natasha to your roster? We’ve been looking for information about HYDRA for a long time, and if you know everyone, then maybe we can finally figure out what some of them are up to. You’d be doing me a huge favor,” he said with utter sincerity.

From the look on F.A.B.U.L.O.U.S.’ faces, Natasha figured they would have nodded yes even if he’d asked them to jump off a bridge.

\---  
F.A.B.U.L.O.U.S. did not know how to spy. That was all right, as far as Natasha was concerned, she was spy enough for all of them. With a holographic disguise and carefully-chosen outfits (by F.A.B.U.L.O.U.S., Natasha was no fool), she could pass unremarked as a fashion intern. Natasha was not above fetching coffee and holding things to maintain her cover, not when it got her _here._

Tactical, Undercover, and Spycraft Fashion week was surreal, rows of booths like a vender hall at a convention, all conspicuously free of any badges or logos, where teams of designers were laboring over a wild array of clothing, armor, and accessories. Natasha had never seen so many bulletproof suits and briefcases in her life, not to mention hats that doubled as knives, watches that turned into garrotes, and shoes with more functions than a Swiss Army knife. 

The design teams ranged from people who could have been office drones, to tattooed and pierced hipsters and goths, from silent and dour to bubbly and vivacious as they pieced together things to help people spy on and/or murder each other. 

And there _was_ a team of parrot fashion designers, stitching away at red and yellow cape with sharp beaks and claws. Natasha was going to need a lot of vodka to deal with this once she was off the clock. Steve owed her that much.

“Oh my God. Oh my God, oh my God, ohmyGodohmyGodohmyGod, it’s _him!_ ” Jay said, hand to his mouth, looking so excited he was just about to faint. His reaction got an _immediate_ response from the other members of F.A.B.U.L.O.U.S., all of them crowding out of their booth to stare at the man walking at the end of the aisle. Natasha couldn’t see much at first in the crowd, just a quarter profile of a man with dark clothing, longish dark brown hair, fine physique, and a rolling, balanced walk that bespoke of a lot of combat training. He looked like a stalking panther. Something about his stance and frame tugged at her memory, but she had known a lot of combat-trained brunets in her life.

“Everything is _so_ ready this year,” Harold said definitively.

“We are _winning_ that contest, I swear on Tim Gunn’s lapels,” Grace said, sounding positively fierce.

“I am not even going back if we don’t pull this off,” Vera said, waving her hand at her face a little to cool a blush. “I couldn’t live down the shame.”

“Contest?” Natasha prompted quietly.

“I don’t know his organization, something Russian maybe? but they put him up as a prize model every year. You win the contest for the most unique new improvement in protective wear and you get to use him as a model in your runway show. Soldat’s got the body and face of a god and a walk fierce enough to kill,” Grace said, because Jay was a little too overcome to talk sensibly.

“Not to mention the _hardware_ ,” Vera said, licking her lips.

“Ooo, that arm is a damn work of art,” Harold said.

“Wait, did you call him ‘Soldat?’” Natasha said, keeping her mouth from sagging open as she got a closer look at the “model” they were all so impressed by. 

“Yeah, that’s what his handlers call him, and I’ve never heard him answer to anything else. I guess it’s a code name or something.” Jay waved it away, eyes following the model raptly. “Doesn’t matter. Even if I were straight, I think I’d still climb him like a tree. I’d dress him _any_ day of the week.”

“I’m about as straight as a pretzel, and I’d give him a free pass,” Vera said. “Some beauties just _transcend_ , you know? Like him, or MI6.” She sighed as Soldat moved away from them and finally disappeared into the crowd. “Win or bust, so help me Edna Mode.”

Natasha felt like her brain was going to explode. She grabbed Jay by his collar in a deceptively mild-looking hold and dragged him back into the booth so she could hiss at them all while still looking like she was pleasantly talking. “That is the damn _Winter Soldier_ parading around out there in jeans and a button-down shirt!”

“The who?” Jay asked.

“Fuck me,” Natasha all but threw her hands up. The designers’ political ignorance was the stuff of epic legend. “Captain Rogers’ best friend, Bucky Barnes? Survived his fall in World War II, got kidnapped and brainwashed and his arm replaced by HYDRA, and they’ve been using him as an elite assassin for the past seventy-five years, popping him in and out of cryo sleep when they need him. He was supposed to have escaped HYDRA two years ago.”

“Captain Rogers’ best friend?” Grace said. Her eyes lit up. “Guys, we have to win this! Then we can call Captain Rogers and let him know his friend’s alive!”

Natasha opened her mouth, then shut it again. If it would help anything to cry, Natasha would cry. What part of “brainwashed elite assassin” wasn’t registering to the designers? And why the hell was Bucky, or the Winter Soldier, even _here?_ He had been on the run for nearly two years; had he been recaptured? Or had he returned of his own free will? Getting him alone, and away from his handlers, would be the only way to tell for certain. Forget trying to pump the supposedly-HYDRA fashion team for intel, if they could get Bucky out, that was all that mattered. 

Instead all Natasha said was, “Oh yes, let’s go win that contest.”

\---

Natasha was used to being surprised, she was just usually very good at seeming to be cool and unruffled (or really, whatever was most advantageous at the time). She had watched the other teams of fashion designers parade out camouflage vests tailored to reflect bullets, automatic light cannons mounted on hats to redirect targeting lasers, even shoes that caused smoke screens. So when F.A.B.U.L.O.U.S. took a pair of sunglasses out of a padded case and handled them like they were spun glass, she was understandable skeptical, but kept her expression positive.

Vera laid them out very gently on a piece of pristine white cloth, then waved Harold over. Natasha watched with bemusement as Harold tinkered with some bit of tiny circuitry in the bridge, Grace made minute adjustments to the set of the earpieces, Jay shifted the polarization in accordance with an elaborate chart, and Vera added a subtle touch of color that turned it from utilitarian to elegant. Without even a by-your-leave, she settled them on Natasha’s face.

“Okay… now what do you see?” Vera asked.

Other than having the frames around her eyes, Natasha’s vision didn’t seem to be dimmed at all. She looked left and right, then back at Vera, and paused. A blue glow outlined a form-fitting vest-shape on Vera’s torso. Natasha flicked her eyes over to some of the others in the crowd, seeing more blue outlines on other people, and then red glows in the shape of guns or knives, often expertly concealed, the occasional green glow in people’s ears or hats.

Her eyes widened at the implications and she turned back to see all of F.A.B.U.L.O.U.S. grinning like loons. 

“It scans for protective gear and weapons, implants and earwigs, lets you know of any nasty physical surprises!” Harold said.

“Also won’t fall off, no matter what position you take, and they’re shatterproof, so no one can break them on your face!” Grace added.

“And? Elegant. The lenses polarize so you don’t have to take them off inside,” Jay said.

“If you guys don’t win, I will make sure you win,” she said fiercely. And not just for being able to talk to the Winter Soldier either. 

“Uh… how?” Jay asked.

Natasha smiled a very particular smile. Harold turned pale, nudged Jay, and dragged him to the back of the booth to fiddle with racks of clothing for their runway show.

\--

Soldat’s handlers dropped him off at F.A.B.U.L.O.U.S.’ booth (now decorated with a gold ribbon for their first-place win) with a little wave, patting his hair before they sailed off back into the crowd. Natasha was fearing for F.A.B.U.L.O.U.S.’ sanity, because all four of them looked so overcome that they might as well faint before they managed to get words out.

Soldat paused, expression very neutral aside from a little eyeflick off to the side, waiting for anyone to say anything, then said, “I’m here to model for you.”

Natasha was grateful to hear him talking clear, unaccented English.

Vera managed to recover the powers of speech first, physically shaking herself and then smiling widely. “We’re all such huge fans!” she said. “Seriously, we’ve been admirers for _years_.”

“Oh.” Very neutral. No expression. Harold either didn’t notice or had gone into survival mode by bringing out an elegant outfit, cunningly tailored combat armor that could pass for business casual street clothes at the first glance, and again on the second. Since Natasha had watched them put it together, she knew what looked like seams or pockets were really clips to support holsters or knife sheaths. And it had a tear-away sleeve on the left arm, so nothing vial would rip when the Winter Soldier exerted his bionic limb. 

“You’ve got the _best_ walk of anyone I’ve ever seen!” Jay gushed. “Seriously, you _wurq_ the runway.”

Natasha could _hear_ the alternate spelling clear as day. Soldat stared at Jay with astonishment. 

“You… like the way I walk?”

“Of course! You’ve got such a confident _strut_ that you make everything look good. But we’re going to make you look _fabulous!_ ”

“You don’t like the way I kill?” he asked.

“Uh… not our area?” Grace said, head cocked in confusion. “We don’t work the wet end of stuff.”

It was little things like that like that reminded Natasha that F.A.B.U.L.O.U.S.’ political ignorance aside, they were still S.H.I.E.L.D. agents.

“You like the way I _walk_ ,” Soldat repeated as if he couldn’t believe his ears. 

“No, they like the way you strut, Bucky,” Natasha said, wanting to see what he’d do. He whipped around to look at her, his long hair flying, and Natasha briefly dropped her holographic disguise.

His jaw sagged open.

“Is it Bucky I’m talking to?” she asked, her Widow’s Bite ready to deploy in case the answer wasn’t something she was comfortable with.

“Yes, I’m Bucky,” he said through clenched teeth. “I remember… everything.”

“Awesome! I’ve got Captain Roger’s number here, if you want to call him and let him know you’re alive and stuff. He’s been all mopey for like a year,” Grace chirped, holding out the burner phone Natasha had insisted on giving her.

He looked mildly horrified. “Steve? I can’t-.”

“What the hell are you doing here? I thought you’d been recaptured,” Natasha said, glaring at him.

“I… really needed to resupply, and Svetlana, Sasha, and Alexsi don’t give two shits what I do outside of their workrooms as long as I sit still long enough to play dress-up.” He looked a little embarrassed by the admission. “And I wasn’t sure if… I wasn’t sure about a lot of things until recently.”

“But I thought you were Captain Roger’s best friend?” Grace said, her elaborately-pinned blonde hair quivering in time with her bottom lip as she valiantly tried to hide disappointment.

Harder men than Bucky Barnes would have bitten their own finger off before facing Grace and saying no, particularly not when the equally worshipful faces of Vera, Jay, and Harold were looking entreatingly over her shoulder.

“I… I’ll call him once we’re out of here,” he promised. “But, I’ve got to get out in one piece, and, ah, I think not everyone here hates politics as much as Svetlana does, because I’ve been getting side-eye all day. I might have to fight my way out. Do you guys have any weapons?”

The look on Jay’s face clearly said, _Bitch, please_ , though he would never say that out loud to his idol. 

“Stand,” Vera said imperiously. “And strip.”

Bucky looked a little rebellious, until Natasha fixed her gimlet stare on him. “They’ve been dreaming about this for five years, Bucky.”

“I just need the weapons!”

“No, you need weapons and a distraction. Isn’t that right, Agent Romanov?” Harold said, looking over at her anxiously. She resisted the urge to pet his head and give him a treat for being a clever boy.

“I’m going on that runway, no matter what, right?” Bucky muttered, and began to peel off his clothes.

“Oh, so right,” Natasha said, leaning back against the table and crossing her arms expectantly. 

F.A.B.U.L.O.U.S.’ nervousness around “Soldat” fell away as they pulled out all the clothing they had for him, arraying him in dark navy armor and reinforced clothing that still gave him incredible freedom of movement. (The fact that it looked like it was painted on in a few choice areas was a bonus. Or fanservice.) Then they started pulling out weapons’ cases, revealing a wide array of knives and guns. Bucky started to reach for a field-stripped Skorpion when Grace snatched it up with plump, beringed fingers and reassembled and loaded it with a brisk efficiency he couldn’t have bettered.

“Half a second off your best,” Harold said, and Grace pouted as she carefully slung it securely down Bucky’s spine.

Both Bucky and Natasha had to stare at Grace for that.

“She’s the best at holster and sling design,” Jay confessed. “I’ve been trying to beat her record for a year.” He sighed, and started to slip the knives into the hidden sheaths all over Bucky’s body. “That’s why I always have to do the coffee runs.”

“Ever had to switch guns in the middle of a runway show? Be fast or be dead,” Vera pointed out. “If it can’t function on the runway, it doesn’t belong in the field.”

“This is totally gonna work,” Bucky said, suddenly supremely confident. 

Natasha debated whether or not she was going to need vodka to just get through the mission, then sighed, grabbed her belt that turned into a grappling line, and started to plan their extraction around the runway show.

\--

“…and then he comes out in the last outfit, and the crowd just goes all silent because, _wow_ , he looks ten different kinds of amazing-.”

“And then we come out to take our bows, and everyone was cheering, even those corporate drones from Dullsville-.”

“FBI, ten to one it’s the FBI.”

“And then _smash_ , _bang_! Smoke and confetti and glitter _everywhere_ , and then someone turns up the music and everyone’s thinking we’re kicking off the afterparty, so moves start to be busted-.”

“But Natasha had us wear our ascending harnesses-.”

“Which are super-pinchy in places, so we really need to work on that.”

“And we go up through the ceiling like _Jesus Christ Superstar_ while the smoke’s still clearing-.”

“Agent Romanov already has Agent Barton on standby, and he’s got the Quinjet there, so we all pile in and-.”

“Here we are!”

Steve was looking back and forth rapidly as F.A.B.U.L.O.U.S. gave the debriefing nearly all simultaneously, waving cups of elaborate coffee beverages claimed from a Starbucks en route. Natasha figured they deserved it, particularly after seeing Steve’s face light up after Bucky had stopped off the Quinjet. The reunion hugging that had ensued must have been recorded from fifty different angles as the designers had brought their phones out. 

“I can’t even thank you guys enough. You did a wonderful job,” Steve said with one of those beaming smiles that graced his posters.

Natasha flipped them all a nod and a smile, more than demonstrative enough for her, and tugged Steve to leave F.A.B.U.L.O.U.S. be for now, at least until they calmed down. Outside the door, she paused and held out her hand. Bucky was the one that slapped a cold bottle of fine Russian vodka into her open palm. She nodded again, and headed upstairs to share it with Clint. As the elevator doors closed, she looked herself over in the dim reflection of the steel. She was definitely keeping the outfit.

\--

Several hours, six lattes, and two runway brainstorming sessions for next year later (sleep was impossible, there was enough adrenaline running between the designers to power a small train), there was a knock on F.A.B.U.L.O.U.S.’ door. Bucky Barnes stood in the doorway, still in his navy business casual combat armor, looking a little sheepish.

“Hey,” he said, ducking his head a little. Jay might have made a sound that could only have been heard by dogs. Harold elbowed him to get him to start breathing again.

“I, ah, Steve told me about you guys, what you did. Thanks. I hadn’t even realized you guys were S.H.I.E.L.D. so, you guys really saved me. And, ah…” he ran a hand through his hair and Grace made a tiny squeaking sound of glee, “I realized I ran off from there with literally no clothes but what I’m wearing. I don’t even have a second pair of socks.”

There was a soft thump in the corner as Jay passed out.

“He’ll come around eventually,” Harold said, shaking his head. “Sergeant Barnes? We of F.A.B.U.L.O.U.S. would be delighted to fully outfit you.”

“ _If!_ ” Vera said, “if you’d be willing to do um… a little bit of runway for us? We sort of got cut off there at the show.”

Grace high-fived Vera behind her back.

Sergeant Barnes looked a little reluctant, then suddenly smiled a slow, wicked smile. “If Steve comes and does it with me.”

Vera made a noise that could only have been heard by bats, and nodded with a very excellent façade of being cool. “That would be perfectly fine.”

“Then we’ll be down later this afternoon.” He smiled at all of F.A.B.U.L.O.U.S., then headed out the door. From the floor, Jay opened his eyes.

“Did I hear what I thought I heard?”

“You so did.”

“This was so much better than winning first place,” he said, as Harold helped him up. “Dibs on formalware!”

“Over my broken bobbin. Jeans face-off, most painted-on without cutting off circulation gets to do formalware,” Vera said, narrowing her eyes.

“Deal!” Grace said, and soon the F.A.B.U.L.O.U.S. workshop was filled with the sounds of laughter, scissors, and sewing machines.


End file.
